Word of the Week: Bellwether

By Cathy Ryan

Sure, you may feel like you have a sense of the word bellwether, but do you know what the original bellwether is (the origin of the word) or what a wether is?

Currently, the word is used to describe something that is an indicator of future trends, such as one state being a bellwether for how the whole country might vote. It’s also often used in finance, when some people feel that how a certain stock performs is an indication of how others will perform. It can also be used in the fashion industry, and law.

I read this word while scanning and reading the November 1988 edition of The Hinesburg Record, which you can read here. Other past issues can be found at hinesburgrecord.org/archives or by using the “Archives” link at the top of the home page.

The front page of the November 1988 issue discusses the recent election and says, “Although the final results did not exactly place Hinesburg in its usual position of being a bellwether town …”

Since bellwether has to do with predictions, you might think it’s related to weather – or perhaps you’ve accidentally spelled it “bellweather.” But the word’s origin is not related to weather; it’s related to sheep. Sheep tend to flock together and follow others. But who do they follow? Shepherds would select a sheep, typically a castrated male, to be the leader. A male sheep, particularly one that has been castrated, is called a wether. Some spell-checkers will mark wether as a misspelled word, but it’s in Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Scrabble dictionary, so that’s good enough for me.

The shepherd would pick a sheep that was confident, calm, and made safe choices about where to wander. They’d put a bell around its neck. A BELL… on a WETHER! A BELLWETHER! Other sheep would learn to follow the sound of the bell.

A bellwether

I’m not sure why the author of that article in the Record thought that Hinesburg tended to be a bellwether town, but I see why they said it wasn’t this time – Hinesburg voted for Dukakis over Bush. I love reading these way back issues of The Record. There is always something that surprises or interests me. Here are some tidbits from this November 1988 issue that I found interesting:

• Elections: Although Hinesburg voted for Bernie Sanders for U.S. Representative, he lost the election to Republican Peter Smith. Sanders ran again two years later, and won.

• Growth and Traffic: This is a recurring theme; residents being worried about growth and traffic in town. On page 3, Jerry Wetzel voiced concern that “Downtown Hinesburg” would become the next Route 7 and said it was challenging to try and get across 116.

• Emergency Services: On page 4, there’s an article about “Iroquois First Response,” an emergency first aid response organization that provided service to Hinesburg, St. George, Williston, and parts of the interstate. Members were based out of their homes and responded in their own vehicles, with equipment.

• CVU Sports: The girls’ soccer team won the state championship, the girls’ cross-country team won the state championship, the boys’ soccer team finished runner-up, and the boys’ cross-country team was third. Lots of players are mentioned by name!

• Cheap Eats: Fortin’s Valley House Restaurant advertised all-you-can-eat Tuesday Taco nights for just $3.95 including one glass of wine!

• Lynn Gardner and Clifford Lumber: There’s an ad for Clifford Lumber, with Lynn Gardner’s name. We’ve got an audio “My Story” by Lynn that we recorded last year, where he discusses a fire that destroyed the mill, which you can listen to here.

• The Town Gunpowder Stash: A Hinesburg Historical Society article on page 18 discusses the history of the town’s churches. It mentions a church being built in 1811 at the intersection of Route 166 and Silver Street – the site of the current Hinesburg Nursery School and former Masonic Lodge. The article continues, “Underneath was a closet which was used to store the gunpowder belonging to the town. Perhaps this was a reason why there was no heat in the building.”

I encourage you to read these back issues and discover bellwether topics, such as traffic concerns and CVU’s sports domination, that keep popping up decades later.

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You can read about the previous Word of the Week, otiose, here.